Casey Weldon Exhibits Mystical New Works in “Hastemaker”

Seattle based artist Casey Weldon, first featured in HF Vol. 32, paints colorful and glowing works with nostalgic pop references and a touch of humor. In recent years, his paintings have become increasingly mystical, taking otherwise everyday places and animals and giving them a luminous, candy-colored twist. For his current exhibition at Roq la Rue gallery in Seattle, “Hastemaker”, Weldon builds upon his vibrantly colored, dreamlike world. It goes far beyond his “cute-gross” style, as he describes it. In his previous exhibition, “Tropefiend”, covered here, Weldon shared a newfound fascination with the supernatural. Here, light especially takes on a character role of its own, whether beaming from the eyes of alien-like figures, vibrating waves of water, or a cowboy’s glowing lasso. Although utterly bizarre, there is strange familiarity in some of the pieces. In fact, Weldon describes his exhibition as one of “mystical chronicles”, in other words, a surrealistic account of important or historical events. His painting, “Sugar Trade”, portraying two men in a rowboat stowed with candy, slightly recalls the marine subjects of Winslow Homer. The rowers look on in fear as a young woman emerges from the sea like a mythological Kraken. In another image popular throughout American-west oriented art, a cowboy struggles to hold onto his rearing steed, a cute tabby kitten. Take a look at these and more works from “Hastemaker” below, now on view at Roq la Rue gallery in Seattle through October 31st.